Hoarder

Saying goodbye. Born in Preston, UK, 1995. Died  Santa Monica, USA, 2003

I'm a hoarder by nature.

When I was a kid I hoarded stones, cherry pits, stamps, words (I think writing a diary is a form of hoarding), coins, and books.

As I got older, I progressed to hoarding receipts, Marilyn Monroe postcards, James Dean postcards, postcards in general, stickers, more books, more diaries, shoes, Tunnock's milk chocolate tea cake wrappers (I papered my bedroom at room at university with them), photographs (currently digital stats on my comp: 72,171 Photos, 5,435 Videos), interesting foreign currency, driftwood, amusing newspaper clippings, 'treasured' clothes, emails (my gmail currently at 25,724 emails)...

For me hoarding is about memories, loyalty, and love. Shoes are perhaps the best example. A pair of shoes holds the essence of particular moments of joy or despair. The sole is a record of every step. Abandoning a pair of shoes because they are broken or worn out seems... ungrateful.  And I really do just love shoes: the ultimate in form meets function. This is why when we moved from the UK to America in 1998 our four suitcases included a pair of unwearable broken flip flops and two pairs of worn out sneakers. And why, when moved to Canada five years later, I still had them.

Moving country is difficult if you have hoarding tendencies. When we packed for Canada, I knew I had to get rid of stuff, but it was heartbreaking. Once digital photography took off  Mr Husband had the brilliant idea that I photograph shoes and other keepsakes before actually saying goodbye. When the time comes to get rid of something, I now give myself a little grace time, let the thing hang about for a bit, that seems to feed the hoarding beast, and then I can snap a photo and say farewell with minimal trauma. Ok, I sound totally nutso, but there you have it.

However, the BIG thing I've never been able to hoard is food. I can't even seem to keep a stocked pantry. Partly this is because while I love food and eating and watching cooking shows, I'm just not that good a cook and I try and spend as little time as possible in the act of thinking about, planning, and making food.

I've written already about how I was rather late to the party to put together my 2-4 week supply of food (depends on how hungry we are!). But now we have a cupboard of cans and jars that we can break in to when actual zombies are banging on the door.

But the 'shelter-in-place' order came on Sunday/Monday as we were just running low on our current food. Because of an aforementioned auto-immune disease, the advice from my doctors was for me to stay away from people, and, if possible, for the family to do so as well. We were trying to stay away from supermarkets and had hoped that online ordering/delivery would solve that problem. But the delivery system is completely overloaded, no delivery slots available. Why not just ask friends, you may wonder. In fact this is the official advice on the Santa Clara County Health Department COVID-19 page:

"What if I can’t get out of the home?  How can I get supplies and food?
Please contact friends, family, or others you know who can provide support.  They are allowed to pick up any of your needs.  You can also order food and other supplies, and have them delivered to your home."

Turns out it is surprisingly difficult to ask a friend to go shopping for you given the current unknowns and risk. I haven't quite unpacked why and I know we have friends who would want to help this way, I might write about it tomorrow.

Anyway, long story short, we decided to go as long as possible before going to the supermarket, which meant eating all the weird things in the fridge and freezer. Turns out that while I don't think of myself as a food hoarder, I am a 'putting-leftovers-in-the-fridge/freezer-rather-than-throw-them-away' hoarder. We got to relive Thanksgiving and Christmas for a few days. By yesterday all that was left in the freezer was a bag of chia seeds, some very, very brown bananas, coffee, and miso. Time to shop.

We didn't think it through very well but Mr Husband set out for the store at 8.50pm Thursday night. We figured it wouldn't be too busy - easier to practice social distancing. Turned out the store now closes at 9pm not midnight it used to - lots of stores have decreased their hours. He came back with some food yay! He was able to get asparagus, blackberries, cheese, the last three romaine lettuces in California, a gallon of milk, pecans, granola bars, cough lozenges, tortillas, some weird looking bread, and beer. Not quite what was on my list, but food! He said there were many bare shelves,  hardly any fruit or veggies, no eggs. No toilet paper or cleaning products of course. I'd heard that some stores were rationing items - limiting people to three cans of tomatoes and so on but he didn't see any such notices.

I just don't get it. We all did our emergency stash shopping two weeks ago and the shelves understandably got cleared out then. What is happening now? The federal and state government says there is no problem with the food supply chain - the problem is at the consumer end. Why is the fresh stuff is selling - how can you stockpile eggs? A smart friend of mine up in Canada pointed out that because people have to stay home, maybe everyone is just doing more cooking. Where we might usually have bought lunch at work or gone out for dinner, instead we have to cook. I can imagine that behavioural shift might cause a lag while the supermarkets catch up to the new rates of consumption. Food that would have normally gone to restaurants needs to shift to supermarkets. I think it's a good theory, but I think there is still a lot of quite extreme panic-buying going on and I can understand why.

I have to admit when Mr H came home last night with about  fifth of what I'd hoped for, I felt a little panicked, a little anxious. Our plan was falling apart. We couldn't order online. We had taken a risk with him going out and that hadn't gone too well. Ok we'd planned it somewhat poorly - going well before the store closes and going in the morning when the shelves are freshly stocked would be a good idea! But I really hadn't expected empty shelves. I thought the stores round here would be in a steady state now.

I suddenly wished I'd bought a mini-freezer for the garage and filled it up two weeks ago. I wished I'd bought doubles of everything last time I'd gone shopping.

The problem is that seeing the empty shelves prompts us into wanting to panic-shop. Vicious cycle.

I was hearing similar stories from my family in the UK. In fact it sounded worse but I think they are a bit behind - in just the first wave of panic shopping. And then I saw this video and I felt really, really angry. I understand hoarding, I really do. But it helped me get a grip.

Still we need some food. It really is too soon to break into the Stash. I read that if you get online early in the day it is possible to get an online delivery slot. I woke up this morning at 5am and managed to score a delivery from Instacart for next Wednesday.  We'll be good with Mr H's supplies until then. I put together a regular-sized cart of groceries. The usual amount for a week. I'm hoping that when it comes time for the order to be filled the shelves have food on them. Maybe we are part of the problem but I hope not.

Incidentally, ThingTwo has inherited the hoarding gene. He has saved every pair of skate shoes he has ever owned and all his skate decks. Memories, loyalty, and love.

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